Tea, Pastry & Gossip
by Aerial312
Summary: Post Ep for Transition. Donna discusses her trip to Hawaii and her relationship with Josh, with Helen.


Title: Tea, Pastry & Gossip

Author: Aerial312

Rating: PG-13

Category: Fluff/Humor

Spoiler Info: Post Ep for Transition. Everything up through the end of Transition is fair game.

Disclaimer: I own nothing…I just borrow.

Feedback: Greatly appreciated. Sure. Just let me know where its going.

A/N: This little story has been brewing for a while…not sure how I feel about it. It took itself in a direction I hadn't intended.

I scurried across Pennsylvania Avenue from the OEOB to the Blair House. I was running a bit late for my meeting with the First Lady-Elect because of a horribly obstinate reporter who didn't care for the answer I was giving him on a policy question. I am so glad that I'm almost done with press. I may have been decent at it, but its not for me.

Arriving at the door, I took a quick moment to smooth my hair and my clothes before pressing the buzzer. An older gentleman answers the door.

"This way, Ms. Moss. May I take your coat?"

"Thank you," I reply, taking in the incredible foyer. Now, I've been in the Residence of the White House on more than one occasion, and Blair House nearly surpasses that in grandeur. I am led into a "small" room, which hosts a large picture of Abraham Lincoln above an immense fireplace. Helen rose from her position in a beautiful armchair to greet me.

"Donna."

"Hello, Mrs. Santos. Sorry for the delay."

"No trouble," she sighed as I looked around. "They won't let me answer the door."

"Well, you should get used to that."

"I thought I'd have a little longer to live like a normal woman."

I laughed. "How are you liking it here?"

"It's…its nice…its huge. There are actually four buildings, collectively termed the Blair House. I'm told there are 119 rooms total. We found most of them yesterday when the kids and I played hide and seek."

"I imagine that was fun in here."

"It was," Helen smiled. "It was the longest game of hide and seek ever. But this house is not is not exactly kid friendly. Priceless relics and fine furniture usually do not mix well with my children. They didn't know it, but I'd had a staff member trailing each of them during the game yesterday, watching their every move. They were surprisingly well behaved, and the staff did not need to make their presence known."

I laughed again. "Do the kids like their new school?"

"Today's the first day. We'll know at 3:30pm. There were no tears this morning, though. I suppose that's a good sign. Have a seat."

Helen gestured to the beautiful green sofa that sat opposite her armchair. "This furniture is almost too pretty to sit on."

"It's a little imposing."

"And this coming from someone who worked in the White House for almost 8 years."

"I'm sure you'll find the Residence more to your liking. You'll be able to make it a little more homey, more what you want."

"As opposed to somebody's loaner mansion with 150 years of historical significance?"

"Right," I grinned, and sat down.

An older woman came in with a tray of tea and pastries.

"Thank you," Helen told her, taking the tray and setting it on a table. "Do you take sugar?"

"Yes, please, two."

"Milk?"

"No, thank you."

She handed me my tea. "Pastry? Looks like we've got cheese danish and…uh, I think this is lemon."

"Cheese danish, please" Mmm, I look at the danish and realize that I'd been catching up all morning and hadn't eaten anything. Mental note: make sure Josh eats something when I'm done here.

She handed me my breakfast and fixed her own tea. Taking a large bite of her lemon danish, she sat down beside me. "Well?" She had an odd expression on her face, almost a smirk. I wasn't quite sure what I was being asked.

"I've decided to accept the job."

"Excellent. I had a feel you would. But that's not what I was asking about."

"Ma'am?"

"What did I say about calling me that?"

"I'm sorry, I—"

"And, just to be clear, the following conversation is to be between Helen and Donna, not the First Lady-Elect and her Chief of Staff."

"Okay," I looked at her questioningly.

"Donna! You just spent a week in Hawaii! I want to hear all about it."

"Oh."

"I'll reiterate that this conversation is between **Helen** and **Donna**…you look fantastic."

"I do? I don't tan…I go straight from pasty white to lobster, so I spent the week covered in sunscreen."

"No, its not a tan thing. You just look great. Happy, calm."

I smiled. I was more happy and relaxed than I had been in a long time. "Thank you. It…it was incredible."

"So…" Helen began, and by the way she let it trail off, I could tell exactly where this was headed. "You and Josh?"

Here we go. "Yeah." Admitting that to people was a new thing.

"Has this been going on the whole time without anyone knowing?"

"Not exactly."

"Not exactly?"

"It's complicated."

"You have an ability to get through to him like no one else, and you seem so comfortable around him doing it. I guess I assumed that you had certain persuasive techniques that no one else had…"

"No!" I giggled. I couldn't believe that the first conversation I was having with my new boss was about my sex life. "Not until recently," I admitted.

"How recently?"

"Election Day."

"That's it!"

"For that particular…uh…technique. But we've always clicked. I just **get** him in a way no one else does. We've worked together for nine years."

"That long?"

I nodded. "I started working for Josh during President Bartlet's first campaign. He took me on when he really didn't have to, at a particularly rough spot in my life."

"So its gratitude that's let you put up with him?"

"No. It's much more complicated than that. I fell in love with Josh a long time ago. I finally realized it after Rosslyn, but it must have happened well before then."

"Did he only just start to feel the same?"

I shook my head. "He can't place when it was he started to feel more for me, but it wasn't very long after I realized how I felt, he thinks."

"He thinks?"

"We talked about this…for the first time ever…in Hawaii…he honestly can't pin it down. He said that Leo forced him to acknowledge it the Christmas following the second election..."

"So, basically, it was obvious to everyone besides the two of you."

"It seems that way. We were all about misdirection."

"Misdirection?"

"I dated Cliff Calley and Jack Reese, he chased after Joey Lucas and dated Amy Gardner. None of those lasted very long."

"So, based on the timeline you just gave, you'd both realized by, what, four years ago? What's happened in the last four years?"

"There's a big difference between realizing it and admitting it. There was lots more misdirection, I was rowing out of my job. Then there was Gaza. After that I had some hope…he flew halfway across the world in the middle of an international crisis to be with me. But then I got home, and nothing. It froze up as quickly as it had seemed to start…" I paused for a moment. "Then I left, to work for Russell, and he drew your husband into this. Finally, after several months of barely speaking, we found ourselves working together again."

"Lou hired you, right?"

"Yeah, because Josh wouldn't. He wouldn't because—"

"—he was afraid to."

"Inwardly. Outwardly it was the Russell thing."

"So, in your long history, you two never acted on your…uh…feelings?...desire?...because he was your boss?"

"Right."

"So, when you went to work for Russell, what was the problem?"

"That **was** the problem. He was mad I left. And he'd been trying to ignore how he felt. But he couldn't seen anything more than that I'd left him."

"How long after you left was it before he chased after my husband? Do you know?"

"Leo said it was one day."

"One day?"

"Yeah."

"He couldn't take it without you."

"No…"

"Donna, is Josh okay with you accepting the position as my Chief of Staff? I don't want to get in the middle of something that's taken so long to get going…"

"I can't work for him. Whether we're together or not at this point. He understands this. He was really surprised at first, but he's happy for me. This is an incredible opportunity."

Helen smiled at me. "Good. And you're both on the same page now about your relationship?"

"Yeah. We're still proceeding with caution, but we've talked, and we both really want to make this work. The next step is that we are publicly together. No trying to hide anything anymore."

"Good."

My cell phone began to buzz in my purse.

"Go ahead and answer it," Helen reassured.

I fished it out, and looked at the screen. Josh.

"Hey!...I'm over at Blair House. Have you ever actually been inside--…ah, of course…yes, lunch sound good, I just had a danish, but I could do lunch in a little while…okay…I'll come to your office…I love you, too." I was grinning like an idiot.

Helen smirked at me as I put my phone away. "What a difference a week makes, huh?"

"Tell me about it."

"So did you spend a lot of time at the beach, or a lot of time in the hotel room?" she grinned.

I could feel the heat pooling in my cheeks as I blushed. "We…uh…we…"

She laughed. "Matt and I went to Hawaii on our honeymoon. We didn't see much of the beach."

I giggled. "We spent a good amount of time in, uh, both. It was just good to relax, and be together. Up to then, our physical relationship had been just that, physical. We'd get together and have sex, and then pretend nothing was happening to everyone else. So it was just nice to connect again, on a deeper level."

"That's good."

I smiled and took a chance. "Of course, the sex was great too, don't get me wrong."

She laughed heartily. "It's so nice to just talk like this. Like a normal woman, not the wife of the future head of state."

"Glad to be of service."

"Let's meet tomorrow to start to think about organizing my office, and any other staff I might need. I'll be looking to you to tell me what the hell I'm supposed to be doing."

"Okay. I'll put in some thought. We should set up a meeting with Dr. Bartlet, to see what wisdom she can impart."

"Sounds like a good idea. Now, though, you should go have lunch with your boyfriend. Consider it my first order," Helen smirked.

"Yes, Ma'am."

FIN


End file.
